The modern depictions of the magician are too explicit. Earlier renditions were more instructive. You see, the magician was portrayed as a trickster, entertaining kids or amused adults. This is what regular people see. They look at the magician’s dexterity with so many things and they take it as a narrow capability split between stuff. He does fancy stuff with this, he does fancy stuff with that, and you are entertained. They look at it as if looking at each hand alone in a piano performance for two hands.
But what only adepts understand is that the magician operates at a system’s level. Its about the interactions between those different things, a whole greater than the sum of its parts. In order to understand this character you need to imagine the system behind all that fancy stuff. Imagine a system in which you can do as you please with so many different assets, even if they are new to you.
That’s what’s really going on. The rest is entertainment.
Remember when you did something for the first time? Do it like a pro and you will have achieved the summit of this pyramid. And if you are a pro at doing things for the first time its because you started as a pro at starting things — you started as The Fool.
The card is No.1 and its the first lesson to the Fool not because it is of lesser value but because it is the compass for the journey, and a compass that points to itself as a destination. The beginning and the end is card No1. The Fool is the start of every Magician and the Magician is the Anti-Fool, or the Fool at the end of his journey.
Compliments of the Author 